We used the same data analysis tools to examine where the papers
on the list were published. The most cited journal by a clear
margin was Energy and Environment, which
provided 131 papers to the list - almost 15 percent of the
total.

"I was defeated by facts,"
writes the Republican Massachusetts based blogger D. R. Tucker
at the FrumForum website.
The freelance
writer and radio host has explained why, as a member of the
"urban right", he has changed his mind about climate change.

"It wasn't all that long ago when I joined others on the right
in dismissing concerns about climate change. It was my firm belief
that the science was unsettled, that any movement associated with
Al Gore and Van Jones couldn't possibly be trusted, that
environmentalists were simply left-wing, anti-capitalist
cooks."

This response to the public debate on climate change will be
familiar to right wing Conservatives and libertarians in the UK,
who have seen environmental groups call for state interventions and
higher taxation in some areas to deal with global warming.

Tucker writes that he began to question his instinctive
rejection of the science of climate change after reading Professor
Morris Fiorina's book
Disconnect (2009).

A new report, "The
State of the Arctic Coast 2010" has been
released. It was a major undertaking - more than 30 scientists
from 10 countries studied around a quarter of the entire Arctic
coastline - 100,000 km in all. They assessed the physical,
ecological and social impacts of environmental change.

The report emphasises the importance of the Arctic coast,
calling it

"…a locus of human
activity, a rich band of biodiversity, critical habitat, and high
productivity, and among the most dynamic components of the
circumpolar landscape."

It says that the coast supports the majority of indigenous
communities in the area and very large populations of fish mammals
and birds, providing habitat for 500 million seabirds alone.

Three respected scientists have independently complained that
their climate studies have been misrepresented by sceptics in order
to bolster a list of papers thrown together to challenge the
consensus on global warming.

Some of the papers cited have been published in prominent peer
review journals, including 34 from Nature and 33 from Science.

However, our analysis also shows that many of the papers do not
focus on human-induced climate change - and so have little
relevance to the theme of the list.

Furthermore, some of the authors featured on the list surprised
us, so we contacted a selection to see whether they supported this
interpretation of their work - the responses confirmed their work
is being misappropriated by inclusion in lists such as this.

Professor Peter deMenocal, of the Earth Institute, Columbia
University, told the Carbon Brief when asked about the inclusion of
his paper on the list:

"I've responded to similar queries
over the years. No, this is not an accurate representation of my
work and I've said so many times to them and in print.

"I've asked Dennis Avery of the Heartland Institute to take my
name off [another similar] list four times and I've never had a
response. There are 15 other Columbia colleagues on there as well
... and all want their names removed."

The article references a blog linking to more than 900 papers
which, according to the GWPF, refute "concern relating to a
negative environmental or socio-economic effect of AGW, usually
exaggerated as catastrophic."

However, a preliminary data analysis by the Carbon Brief has
revealed that nine of the ten most prolific authors cited have
clear links to organisations funded by ExxonMobil, and the tenth
has co-authored several papers with Exxon-linked contributors.

"I wasn't going to crow, really I wasn't. But I'm afraid I can't
resist," writes climate sceptic James Delingpole on
his Telegraph blog. "I'm talking about the Press Complaints
Commission's ruling on a complaint brought against this blog by our
old friends at the University of East Anglia. They lost. We
won."

UEA had complained about three posts written by Mr Delingpole on
the subject of "Climategate"
which enlarged upon his opinion that the "corrupt, mendacious
Climate Change industry" has conspired on a global level,
successfully hoodwinking governments, national academies and even
multi-national oil companies in order to get a few more research
grants.

"The Commission emphasised that the
articles in question were blog posts and were clearly identifiable
as such to readers generally … The Commission was satisfied that
readers would be aware that the comments therein represented the
columnist's own robust views of the matters in question.
Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors' Code permits the publication of
such comment provided it is clearly distinguished from fact and
does not contain significantly inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information."

The message from the world's climate scientists is clear: Earth
is warming and humans are responsible. Almost all climate
scientists (>97%)
agree that human activity is a significant contributor to the
increase in the average global temperature. But based on the same
study, only 58% of the public agree.

There's clearly a complicated interaction between scientific
opinion and what the public thinks. Here are 7 complicating factors
we plucked from the science communications literature…

1. Hot days change people's minds

One study,
published just last week, showed that people who felt that the day
was hotter than normal were more likely to show concern about
climate change. The weather was almost as big a factor as people's
political belief in opinions about climate change.